


The Ones Left Behind

by perpetualwhim



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Consensual Underage Sex, M/M, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-05
Updated: 2005-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-03 21:49:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4116118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetualwhim/pseuds/perpetualwhim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick, a man struggling to cope with the disappearance of his boyfriend, finds some comfort in helping a stranger. But there's something not quite right about this young man who says so much without ever opening his mouth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ones Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> This is oldfic, backdated to the best of my recollection.

I make it a point never to take in strays, but the kid looked so pitiful in the rain, leaning against the wall of my apartment building with that soulful look in his eyes. I swear, he could have come straight out of Dickens, raggedy clothes and all. Hell, maybe he did. It's as good an explanation as any.

Normally I'd have breezed right past him; these days you never know when a harmless bum might turn out to be something else. The Dark does funny things to desperate people. But this time, I was stuck; I'd already noticed him, and he'd seen me noticing. He stared at me with those quivering brown eyes, and it was so over-the-top that I'd have laughed, if only the "wet, starving orphan" act hadn't already begun to tug at the proverbial heartstrings. 

I stopped in front of the kid and looked him over. He couldn't have been more than sixteen, all jutting limbs and awkward angles where living on the street had taken all the meat off his bones. 

"You waiting for someone?" 

He shook his head, limp brown hair falling into his face. He was shivering; looking down, I noticed he was barefoot. 

"You live here?" 

He shook his head again, unblinking. I saw a glimmer of something in his eyes, a faint trace of ethereal not-rightness lurking under the starving desperation. A chill went through me that had nothing to do with the rain. 

"Can you talk, kid?" 

He opened his mouth, and for a second I though he would, but it just hung there. After a moment, he closed it again with a look of puzzlement, shaking his head once more. 

I sighed. "Come on, let's get you some food. My name's Rick," I said, offering him my hand. Tentatively, he reached out with his own dirty hand, and I clasped it briefly while he stared, looking about as wary as I felt. 

I led the way upstairs to my apartment, feeling like a bigger idiot with every step. I can't say what made me do it--maybe I was just lonely. After Jerry left, I really didn't go out much, and the apartment just felt so damn empty without him. Even a mute orphan kid seemed like good company after months of isolation. Maybe I was just trying to show a little kindness in a world that had so little of it left to give. Maybe he reminded me of a childhood friend, just lingering on the edge of memory. And if I ran out of excuses, I could always blame it on the Dark. It's good for that, if nothing else. 

When we got inside, he was still shivering, wet clothes dripping on my carpet. The apartment was heated with old-style radiators, which is another way of saying it wasn't really heated at all. I flipped on the space heater in the living room and dropped my jacket on the couch. "You look like a drowned puppy, kid. Sit tight--I'll get you some sweats or something." 

I rummaged through my clothes, but everything wearable was dirty. It felt kind of stupid to be worried about that when even the dirtiest thing on my bedroom floor probably would've been the cleanest thing the kid saw all week, but some sort of overzealous sense of pride drove me to the box under the bed instead. The kid was scrawny, and a good six inches shorter than me. My clothes wouldn't have fit him, anyway. 

Old ghosts take a lot of shapes. This one was size medium, heather grey, with "UCLA" printed on the front in red letters. My fingers traced the raised logo; the whole box still smelled like him, musk and motor oil. Jerry always kept a couple of spare changes of clothes at my place, and when he left, he hadn't bothered to take them. "I'll be back," he said, flashing that crooked smile at me, the one that made me melt a little inside. 

Liar. Bastard. I loved you so much. 

I grabbed the matching sweatpants and took them out to the kid before I started getting all teary-eyed. "Here," I said, tossing the clothes on the end of the couch closest to him. "Get changed before you catch pneumonia or something. I'll whip up some dinner. How do you feel about--" 

I stopped dead in my tracks. The kid was stripping in the middle of my living room, peeling his wet shirt off glistening tan skin. What I'd mistaken earlier for emaciation turned out to be a natural leanness; I could see his lower ribs when his arms stretched overhead, but overall, he was very well put-together. Smooth lines and a trace of muscle, with a trail of soft, dark hair dipping below the waistband of his tattered jeans. The jeans he was starting to remove.

"Hey!" I waved my hands in front of me, as if they could shoo the nakedness away. "Hey! Not here. Use the bathroom." I pointed, and he nodded, flushed, and scurried down the hall. I grabbed his wet shirt off the floor and laid it out on the radiator. 

A few months alone, and I'm ogling jailbait, I thought. Wonderful. 

I cooked up some spaghetti while the kid wandered around my living room, picking up CDs and trinkets and turning them over in his hands. When I came out again, he was looking at the pictures on my bookshelf. 

"You ready to eat?" The picture he held was one of many I couldn't bear to throw away. Behind dusty glass, Jerry and I were grinning like idiots, my arm draped over his shoulder and his around my waist. The photographer was his mother; his family's Iowa farmhouse stood quiet and unchanging in the background. "Me and my boyfriend," I explained, in response to his questioning look. "Or ex-boyfriend, I guess. He, uh...he disappeared. Left to take a job in Houston and never showed up there. Cops couldn't find a trace of him. Not his car, nothing." 

I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but the kid looked even sadder than he had on the street. He held the picture out to me, and I took it with a weak smile. Wiping the dust off the frame with my sleeve, I set it back in its place, next to the rest of the ghosts. 

"Come on," I said, giving him what I hoped was a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Let's have some dinner." 

He tore into his food like he had never eaten before; the sheer enthusiasm he showed for it was exhausting to watch. He refilled his plate three times, and probably would have gone for a fourth if we hadn't run out. I chuckled softly as he picked up his plate and literally licked it clean. I'd have taken it as a compliment if the sauce hadn't come straight from a jar. 

After dinner, the rain was still pouring down. There was no point sending him back outside if he was just going to get soaked again, so I started flipping through my movies. "You can stick around until the rain stops," I told him, and he nodded his understanding. "Feel like watching a movie while we wait?"

The kid kept looking at me while the movie played; I saw him out of the corner of my eye, stealing glances. Food and a late night were having their effect on me, though, and I found myself drifting off toward the end of the show. The apartment was finally warming up, thank God, and it was starting to feel like the cozy little nest it had once been. 

A heavy weight across my thighs woke me, and my eyes shot open to see the kid climbing into my lap. My sleep-fogged brain couldn’t manage an objection, and he curled against my chest, warm and sleepy, his arms twined loosely around my neck. My arms instinctively wanted to curl around him, wanted to pull his body tight against me, but the remains of what passed for my common sense these days stopped me. 

He sighed softly, the first sound I'd heard out of him so far, and shifted, tilting his head upward. I knew what was coming, could see it as clear as the pictures on the TV screen, but I was helpless to stop it, pliable under his squirming weight as he leaned up to kiss me. 

His lips were soft, full as pillows against mine. They parted sweetly, inviting me inside, but there was no innocence in this kiss, just heat and desire. An alarm was going off somewhere in the back of my head, screaming that this was wrong, and sick, and Christ, where did he learn to do that with his tongue? 

Somehow, the part of my brain still capable of conscious thought finally kicked in, and I pushed him away. He made a tiny mewling noise, clutching at my shirt as I tried to untangle myself. There went the soulful eyes again, glistening and sad. You'd think I'd kicked him or something, from the look on the kid's face. 

"No," I said, wiping my mouth, "this isn't right. Jeez, how old are you, kid? I don't even know your name." I looked out the window. Still raining. Shit. "Look, I'll...I'll go get you some blankets, and you can sleep out here tonight. But tomorrow you have to leave, go back wherever it is you came from."

He nodded slowly, and I stomped off to the bedroom for spare blankets, trying my damnedest not to think about the way his tongue had slid against mine, or how it might have felt to pull him close and taste the sweat on his skin. I half-expected him to sneak into my room in the night, but thankfully, he left me alone. I didn’t sleep well.

It was still raining when I woke up, the weather outside cold and miserable--Los Angeles winter at its worst. The kid watched me while I got ready for work, nothing but a pair of questioning eyes peering out of a pile of blankets. When I was showered, shaved, and somewhat approaching presentable, I stood in the bedroom doorway, staring back at him. He still looked pitiful. 

"Can I trust you?" I leveled my gaze at him, trying to channel all the sternness of a fifth-grade gym teacher. The kid pulled the blanket off his head, blinking at me; with his hair mussed, he was almost unspeakably adorable. "I don't want to kick you out in the rain, but I've got to go to work. Can I trust you not to mess with my stuff?" 

I swear, he looked exactly like a giant, skinny puppy, nodding vigorously and beaming at me, eyes shining. It was so sweet it was sickening, but I felt my heart melt a little anyway. 

By the time I got to work, I'd finally found a few shreds of my common sense, and I spent the entire day anxious and jumpy. What would I find when I got home? Would my door be swinging on its hinges, all my valuables gone? Maybe the kid was a junkie, and I'd find him dead on my floor, OD’d on drugs or something worse. Maybe my entire building would go missing, like a traveler in the desert. I cooked up awful scenarios all day long, and when the clock hit five, I was off and running, the mile and a half between me and my apartment racing by in a blur. 

The building was still there; that was a good sign. When I got upstairs, my door looked perfectly fine too. I stopped for a second to listen. No spooky, Dark-crazed howling was emanating from my apartment. Everything seemed normal. 

I opened the door, and Jerry was standing in my living room. 

I let out a gasp of surprise before the wind was knocked completely out of me. I stumbled forward, reaching for him. I gathered him in my arms, tears streaming down my face, and he smiled that perfect little smile that haunted my dreams. I kissed his cheeks, his eyelids, his forehead, his chin, laughing through my tears as I cupped his face in my hands. "Where have you been, Jer?" My voice was no more than a choked whisper. "What happened?" 

Jerry shrugged, with a helpless little smile. He pulled me down to kiss him, and his lips were exactly as I remembered, firm and smooth and right against mine. I slipped my hands beneath his shirt, and his body was hard and lean. I pulled him tighter against me. 

And that was when I remembered. I broke the kiss, holding Jerry an arm's length away. "Where's the kid?" 

Jerry gave me a blank look, then tried to come closer. I pushed back, horror creeping up my spine. "Say something, Jerry." 

He pressed a finger against my lips. I snatched the hand away. 

"You're not Jerry, are you?" 

He shook his head sadly, and I could see a flicker of brown in Jerry's stormy blue eyes. Pulling him closer, I looked at his left eye--there was a tiny black fleck there, right in the middle of the sea of blue. It was my secret spot. You could only see it if you were close enough to kiss him. I tugged at his hand, spreading the fingers with my own, and there, between his middle and ring fingers, was a small round mole, brown tinged with red. 

Sudden rage flared up in me; I squeezed his wrist tighter, and sad eyes became frightened. "How did you do this? How do you know this form? Not from _pictures_ , that's for damn sure!" I spun, slammed him against the wall; held him there while he squirmed. He was making tiny noises, choking on what might have been words, but I didn't want to hear them. "Was it you? Are you the one who found him out there? What the hell did you do to him?" I shook him, hard, and his head knocked against the wall. He started crying, great wailing sobs louder than anything I'd heard from the kid. "Where is he?" 

The face distorted, changed, the skin under my fingers shifted, and I was holding the kid, his face red and streaked with snot and tears. He kept on sobbing, shaking his head desperately while he struggled against my grip. Christ, I thought, he’s just a scared kid. What kind of a rotten bastard am I?

I relaxed my grip slightly, trying to hold him steady without hurting. Calm him down, smooth it over. "I just need to know, okay? How do you know what he looks like? Where did you see him?" 

The kid reached up to touch my face. I stiffened, but he only rested his hands on the sides of my face for a moment, fingertips touching my temples. Then the hands moved down and crossed over my chest, resting there briefly before dropping back to his sides. He looked at me sheepishly, sniffling through his tears. 

Okay, so the kid was a mind-reader. That was still pretty creepy.

"I don't want you in my head, kid. Stop it." He shook his head, whimpering. "I'm serious. Do you want me to kick you out?" More shaking, harder this time, his shaggy hair whipping his face audibly. "Then get the hell out of my head. That's not for you." 

"Can't," he whispered, his eyes downcast. His voice was low and breathy, his tone unsure. Like he had never spoken before. 

I let my hands drop from his shoulders. "So you can talk." 

He shook his head again--I wondered if all that head-shaking was making him dizzy--and rubbed his shoulders, hugging himself tightly. "Can't," he repeated.

"Fine." Didn’t Jerry used to say I gave up too easily? Defeated, I turned and walked away from him, rubbing my temples. I needed a drink. And a nap. And a normal life again--but didn't everyone, these days? "Whatever. Just...please don't do that again. You're not him." I stopped in the bedroom doorway and turned back for a moment. "And go take a shower or something. You look like hell." 

The rain didn't stop that night, either. The relentless blatter of drops against my window kept me awake most of the night, dwelling on youthful skin and lost treasures. The streets were starting to flood when I walked to work in the morning, huddled under my umbrella. My mood was as miserable as the weather, and neither showed any sign of improving as the week wore on. 

The kid continued to creep me out regularly. He started getting my mail, despite the fact I'd never shown him where the mailbox was, and he didn't have a key. If I was thirsty, he'd get up without a word and bring me a drink. If I thought about a certain food at work, I'd come home to find it on the table. He found my blue sock that had been missing for months, and as much as I wanted to know where he'd found it (and whether he'd searched through my stuff to do it), I didn't bother asking. His vocabulary had increased to include "uh-huh" and "no," and every conversation I had with him played like a game of 20 Questions. Except that the answer to every round was, "I have absolutely no idea how or why I do what I do." 

It was Friday when the letter came. He pressed it into my hands with a mournful look that was probably reflected on my own face when I saw the return address: Pinkerton, Iowa. Without a word, I shut myself in the bedroom to read it. 

_Dear Rick,_

_I hope you're doing well, out there on the wild and crazy streets of L.A. I was just thinking of you and thought I'd write to let you know how we're all doing out here. I know we were never terribly close, but you were a big part of Jerry's life, and so I've always considered you to be a big part of our lives, too. I hope that you feel the same, and that you'll write back to let us know how you are._

The letter was long; I skimmed over a page and a half of family goings-on. Carolyn got married, Marge's boy is starting school, John and Cindy and the kids are back from Brazil. I'd never met most of these people, but I'd heard about them. Jerry had always been close with his family.

_We all miss Jerry a lot, of course. I keep thinking that one day he'll just call up and tell us all about the adventure he's been having these past few months. He always was a little wild and unpredictable, but I guess you don't need me to tell you that._

_I've included a little gift in this envelope, but I have to admit it's a little self-serving. You see, Bill's brother works at the airport out in Chicago, and he gets a lot of little perks for it. Enclosed you will find one voucher, good for a round-trip ticket anywhere in the U.S. within the next six months. Feel free to use it on a little getaway for yourself, but I do hope that you'll remember all of us in Pinkerton, and show your smiling face around these parts again._

_Anyway, I've rambled on too long. Take care of yourself, and write back soon!_

_Love,  
Edna ("Mom")_

I didn't bother trying to stop the tears; they were pouring from my eyes before I'd even finished reading. The ticket voucher was stiff and cold between my fingers. Iowa wasn't just half a country away--it was another world. Another lifetime, where I woke up to ruffled blonde hair and a crooked smile every morning. 

I heard the click of my bedroom door opening, and looked up to see Jerry standing there. The letter fell from my fingertips as I reached out for him, giant choking sobs wracking my body. He came closer, straddled my lap, and kissed my face, my tears shining on his lips. My hands caressed his face and his tongue slid against mine in hot, salty kisses. 

I pulled him close, his body solid against mine. I breathed the scent of him, musky and gritty and so very him, that god-awful shampoo he liked to use lingering in his hair and I loved it, loved it because it was Jerry, warm and alive in my arms like he'd never left. 

"I missed you," I whispered, kissing his neck, my hands running over his back while his tangled in my hair. "I missed you so much." 

His smile was warm and sad and perfect all at once, and I'll be damned if this wasn't the most fucked-up thing I'd ever done in my life, but I didn't care, because he was making those little sighing sounds that I loved so much, and his hands knew exactly where to touch even though mine had forgotten. I pulled him back on the bed with me, our bed, the bed we'd made love in just before he left. It was right, and it was horrible, and I didn't care. 

He twisted and arched and writhed under me exactly the way I remembered. He spread his legs for me exactly the way I wanted. His hands were rough and calloused on my sensitive flesh as he guided me into him. My name was on his lips as he came, and I pulled him closer, tighter, as if I could make him a part of me, make him never leave me again. 

But when I woke up in the morning, it wasn't Jerry next to me. It was just the kid, skinny and snoring. He looked even younger with his face slack, mouth open, drooling on my pillow. I felt sick. What kind of man takes advantage of a desperate homeless teenager like that? 

Well, me, apparently. I laughed, the sound manic and hollow, and much louder than I'd meant it to be. 

The kid turned, stretched, blinked sleepy brown eyes at me. I half-expected him to back away in disgust, but instead, his face brightened with recognition, and he scooted closer, curling against my chest with a happy little sigh.

With a finger under his chin, I tilted his head up to face me. I meant to tell him that this was wrong, that I made a big mistake last night, that he did, too, and that he was absolutely not to ever do that again. I meant to tell him a lot of things, but when I looked into his murky eyes, I could see that he already knew it all. 

"What are you, kid?" 

He snuggled a little closer, wrapping his arm around my waist. "I'm...Micah." 

"Micah, huh?" That was a start, anyway. Maybe not what I was looking for, but I could work with it. "Well, Micah, you should know right off that I’m not comfortable with this, for a lot of reasons." It was true--there was his age, for one, not to mention his inherent creepiness. But at the same time, there was something pleasant and familiar in the feel of that body next to mine, even though I felt like a dirty old lech even admitting it to myself.

The kid--Micah, I reminded myself--was looking at me curiously. What the hell, I thought, just get on with it, you dirty old bastard. "Anyway, I'm really not the easiest person to live with, but..." I groaned inwardly at my own plight--defeated once again by helplessness and puppy-dog eyes--and draped my arm over his shoulders. "How would you feel about staying here with me?" 

And just like that, the rain stopped falling.


End file.
